Questlove Reviews Prince’s Warner Brothers Records

Questlove recently listed 40 reasons Prince was a “Hip-hop pioneer,” following previous tributes including special DJ sets, a written essay, and a Billboard Music Awards speech. Now, he’s reviewed and rated Prince’s entire Warner Brothers catalog—spanning 1978’s For You to 1997’s The Truth—on Okayplayer. “For Prince fanatics,” Quest writes, it’s “an invaluable, personalized set of liner notes/DVD extraz from Prince’s most studious disciple. For beginners, seeking a way into the winding purple labyrinth of Prince’s ouevre…this is the doorway you seek.” Read his take on Purple Rain below.

Prince’s management contract was about to be up and he said “get me a movie deal or you fired.” MJ rode MTV to glory with the visual of Thriller’s videos. Prince was gonna use movies to have the same effect. you’ll notice a pattern for every other album: album “a”) experiment and push envelope to no end album “b”) takes and trim the fat off “album a” and presents a more focused vision. prince took notes on the 1999 tour. and applied them. studied “ballad stadium rock” pop music and all stops in between. made a “clean” 9 song masterpiece. so massive is this album i always overlook it. like Thriller, PR is a way of life not just a record. this changed our view on life. prince had exotic honeys? we wanted exotic honeys. prince dressed a certain way? we (for the most part in 84) followed suit (even the RUN DMC looking cats respected princes steeze. strange the author of “lets pretend we’re married” cleaned his act up but caught the ire of tipper gore (she gave album to her daughter for bday, heard “darling nikki” and had a fit) Prince’s least sexually offensive album winds up being the album that gave birth to the PMRC and stickering. when it came out:@@@@@ how does it hold up some 31 years later? @@@@@. no fat. all lean hits.

Read more on Okayplayer. 

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